Asking prices back on the up as 2013 rolls in

A BUOYANT London housing market led UK asking prices back into growth in January, data revealed this morning.

London’s homeowners added 3.6 per cent onto their asking prices during January, Rightmove said, capping off a healthy 9.6 per cent – or £16,492 – increase over the year.

This robust activity in the capital drove the country as a whole back into positive movement – UK asking prices were up 0.2 per cent in January, Rightmove said, a stark turnaround from December’s 3.3 per cent crash.

The price increase came with a flood of new sellers, the data said. Some 22 per cent more people listed their home this January than did in the same month last year.

But average UK house prices will not reach their pre-recession peak until 2014, according to forecasts from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), also put out this morning.

Weak growth will keep a rein on house prices during the coming year, the forecaster said, but a return to more solid expansion in 2014 “will be enough to push UK house prices over their pre-crisis peak,” achieved in 2007.

By 2018 a typical UK house will cost £261,000, on CEBR’s measure, up 19.1 per cent on the average 2013 valuation of £219,000.